Kingdom of England

The Kingdom of England appears in the Decameron less as an institution described in detail than as a realm made visible through the actions of its king, his household, and his marshals. Its court is a place where royal authority can compel a marriage or restore a daughter to favor; its officers provide shelter and advancement to displaced people; and its armies carry English power into a war abroad. These episodes give England a recurring narrative force: it can impose hardship, but it can also become the setting in which fortunes turn and claims to rank are renewed.

Royal Authority and Marriage

The English king’s power over dynastic marriage is central to Alessandro’s rise. His daughter, still young, secretly leaves home because her father intends her to marry the elderly King of Scotland. On her journey to the Pope, she meets Alessandro and, moved by love, chooses him instead. The two plight their troth before a religious image, but their private commitment does not by itself settle her position within her family or the royal household. At Rome, she explains her choice to the Pope and asks him to recognize the marriage contracted in God’s presence. The Pope agrees, arranges a public ceremony before cardinals and other eminent guests, and sends the couple away with his blessing.

The English king’s eventual response makes reconciliation possible. After the newly married pair travel to Florence and then Paris, the two knights who accompanied the princess go to England and persuade her father to receive her again. The king welcomes both his daughter and Alessandro, whom he makes a knight and grants the Earldom of Cornwall. The marriage that began as a secret act of choice is thus confirmed through public ceremony and royal acceptance. Alessandro’s new standing also allows him to reconcile the king with his son; the story explicitly presents that reconciliation as bringing substantial good to the island. England’s ruler first appears as the father whose proposed match drives his daughter away, but his eventual recognition of her marriage turns royal authority into a source of repair and advancement.

Marshals, Household Service, and Advancement

The stories also show English marshals exercising influence through their households. When Gautier of Antwerp reaches England in disguise with his children, a marshal’s wife sees his daughter at a church door begging for alms. Believing the family to be poor and from Picardy, she offers to take the attractive, well-mannered girl into her care and eventually arrange a good marriage for her. Gautier accepts, entrusting Jeannette to the lady with tears and urgent appeals for her protection. The episode makes the marshal’s household a refuge in exile, though the protection it offers depends on the girl’s separation from her father and her concealed identity.

Gautier then makes his way to Wales with his son, Perrot, and enters the service of another of the king’s marshals. Perrot distinguishes himself among the marshal’s household through his skill in running, leaping, and other boyish exercises; as he grows, he becomes renowned for his prowess in tournaments, jousts, and other feats of arms. Known as Perrot the Picard, he rises within the household not by birth publicly acknowledged, but through ability and service. When plague kills the marshal, his wife, their only son, and many of their kin, the marshal’s daughter and surviving local gentlemen choose Perrot as the young woman’s husband and make him lord of her inheritance. The king then appoints him to the dead marshal’s office. The sequence links household service, military reputation, marriage, inheritance, and royal appointment, while leaving the marshal’s title itself as the clearest evidence of how authority is organized in these episodes.

England at War and the Exile’s Restoration

English military action brings the separate strands of Gautier’s family story back together. After the French king dies and his son succeeds him, a truce with the Germans expires and fierce war begins again. The king of England sends a substantial force to assist France, commanded by Perrot, now the English marshal, and Jamy Lamiens, the son of the other marshal. Gautier accompanies the army in the guise of a horseboy. Though no one recognizes him, he contributes more than his lowly role requires, through both counsel and action. England’s service abroad therefore places the exiled count near the court and country from which his restoration can come, while his son’s new office gives him a position within the same expedition.

The decisive disclosure comes from the French queen, who falls gravely ill and confesses that Gautier had suffered unjustly through her. Before dying, she recounts the matter publicly to a company of eminent men and asks that Gautier, if alive, or one of his children, be restored. Once her confession reaches the French king, he orders proclamations throughout the army and elsewhere, offering a substantial reward for news of the count or either child. The English-led force is not itself shown delivering the judgment, but the campaign becomes the setting in which the wrong is exposed and the search for the family begins. England’s military presence thus intersects with the restoration plot without replacing the French king’s role in correcting the injustice.

Narrative Significance and Limits of the Portrayal

Across these episodes, the Kingdom of England is defined by narrative actions rather than a description of laws, councils, or ordinary government. The king’s personal decisions establish the realm’s visible authority: he is the father who initially seeks a royal marriage for his daughter, the ruler who later receives her chosen husband, and the sovereign who appoints Perrot marshal. The marshals’ households, meanwhile, translate royal service into opportunities for shelter and advancement, but also expose those dependent on them to the consequences of rank, family loss, and concealed identity.

The stories distinguish public status from personal worth without making them interchangeable. Alessandro begins as a young man whose lineage seems inferior to the princess’s, yet her choice, the Pope’s ceremony, and the English king’s favor give him a recognized place at court. Perrot, publicly called a Picard, earns military renown before plague and inheritance make him a marshal’s successor and the king confirms his office. England consequently functions as a site where status may be imposed by birth and royal arrangement, but also revised through choice, service, and recognition. The text offers no comprehensive account of the kingdom; its significance lies in the concrete power its ruler and officers exercise over the lives and fortunes of the people whose stories pass through it.